Optimize Student Performance with Universal Design for Learning Principles
Are there assessments or assignments in your course where student performance could be improved?
If so, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) encourages you to reflect with two guiding questions:
- Would more flexibility lead to better student performance?
- Might the design of this assessment or assignment be impacting a student’s performance, regardless of their achievement of the learning objectives?
These questions align with the third principle of CAST’s UDL Guidelines: Provide multiple means of action and expression. CAST notes that “Learners differ in the ways they navigate a learning environment, approach the learning process, and express what they know.”
Two practical ways to apply this principle to improve student performance include:
- Support self-regulation skills. Some students may struggle with how to begin a complex assignment, prepare for a major exam, or use feedback effectively to improve next time. You can help by scaffolding these processes through tools like timelines, checklists, and explicit discussions about strategies for success.
- Offer Options for Expression. Students communicate their understanding in different ways. Requiring a single format — like only written essays — may limit some students’ ability to demonstrate their knowledge. Could you give them a choice? For example:
- Write a paper or create a video
- Participate in a debate or draft an op-ed
- Design an infographic or deliver a lightning talk
Providing options allows students to use their strengths while still meeting the learning objectives.
Read a full article in our Teaching Resources site for more information: Optimize Student Performance with UDL.
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